Improvement of a control strategy for PV power ramp-rate limitation using the inverters: Reduction of the associated energy losses

In a previous study we presented two strategies to minimize energy storage requirements for PV power ramp-rate control. The first strategy was based on limiting the ramp-up events taking the inverters out of their MPP. While this limited the operation of the storage system, which was only used for smoothing downward PV power fluctuations, the main disadvantage was the loss of energy associated with the inverter limitation. The second strategy, based on the PV plant production limits, had no inverter limitation losses yet there was increased use of the storage system. In this case, should the storage system be affected by cycling degradation, then this would considerably reduce the system lifetime. In this brief note we propose a new strategy that could be considered to be a combination of the two strategies mentioned above, thereby managing to reduce the inverter limitation losses by 75% whilst maintaining low values for the use of the storage system.